Education and Outreach Working Group
Brainstormed Ideas
22 June 2001
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The following lists include ideas generated from discussions during the W3C/WAI
Education and Outreach Working Group meeting held at CWI in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, on June 22, 2001.

The suggestions below are collection of brainstormed ideas reflecting many
different viewpoints during the meeting, and do not necessarily represent
the consensus of the group.

Generating media attention and interest in Web
accessibility, and increasing participation in Web accessibility efforts
within a given country:

Gather contact information for people with disabilities who are comfortable
talking to the media.

Get to know journalists, and maintain contact with them.

Write letters replying to articles in national-level newspapers.

Focus on mainstream press as much as possible, and use a message that emphasizes
the mainstream nature of disability issues.

Focus on plenary sessions at conferences rather than workshops or break-out
sessions where people are already familiar with and supportive of Web
accessibility.

Mention to the press names of companies and organizations that have made
progress on accessibility.

Mention to the press organizations, including municipalities, that have
accessibility problems.

Encourage participants in accessibility promotion campaigns to respond to
news features and keep the issue alive with follow-up stories and letters.

Promote some Web sites as "the best of some bad ones" if there are not yet
better sites to point to.

Be constructive and explain how to make Web sites accessible.

Rate and rank Web sites according to their degree of accessibility, and let
organizations compare each other's sites.

Add logos, perhaps like a sports scoring system, to Web sites.

Hold a large public event about accessibility, and involve the media.

Get organizations to make public promises for Web accessibility.

Broadening a core group of accessibility advocates:

Bring in outside speakers to talk to a local core group.

Start a local Web site promoting Web accessibility.

Invite participation from different disability user organizations: "we need
your knowledge" - then provide information that they can take back to their
own organizations.

Plan Web accessibility promotion activities so that they happen at the same
time as other e-Europe activities.

Plan an initiative with the central information office of national organizations.

Advise people that Web accessibility is part of a trend of development as
the Web moves onto new devices, and those who don't make their sites accessible
will fall behind on supporting access from some newer devices.

Reviewing Web sites for Web accessibility and
usability; and using logos

Explain the tools that can be used to evaluate Web sites.

Evaluate Web sites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but
also provide an option for people who are users to evaluate sites based on
their own experience using the sites.

Be cautious about people who do not have disabilities using assistive
technologies to do evaluations; if a reviewer is using assistive technology
to evaluate a Web site and does not have the relevant disability himself
or herself, involve someone who is a regular user of that assistive technology,
and have them review the site as well.

Include a diverse group of people with disabilities in the evaluation process
for Web sites, using their usual assistive technologies in their usual settings
where possible.

Involve people with disabilities, but don't expect one person to reflect
more than their own experience.

Be careful not to rely only on expert users - people with disabilities who
are expert computers users and assistive technology users. Include some people
who are more novice users.

Use a protocol of questions for usability, e.g. navigation, consistency,
etc., to score Web sites including their score for Web Content Accessibility
Guideline conformance.

Consider using usability guideline sets during evaluation, such as those
from Trace Research and Development Center.

Develop a database in which to organize and compare the results of Web site
reviews.

Investigate delays in localizations (local translations) of Web site evaluation
tools that may affect evaluation results, and adjust evaluations accordingly.

Investigate delays in localized implementations of accessibility features
in browsers, multimedia players, or assistive technologies; for instance,
if only one screen reader is localized to a given language, then evaluation
of certain accessibility features can be much more focused.

If using logos to indicate a given accessibility conformance level on a Web
site, clarify the scope of the Web site to which they apply, and what type
of evaluation process was used to review the Web site.